AKP's Machiavellian Victory: How It Happened and What It Means for Turkey
Posted: 11/13/2015 3:51 pm EST Updated: 5 hours ago
In less than five months, Turkey's voters delivered two election results that have disproved most polls and stunned observers. Few people had anticipated the pro-Kurdish leftist Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to win as big as they did in the June election and to deny the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) the mandate to govern alone for the first time in 13 years. That poll led to a protracted government crisis and a snap re-run election on November 1 in an environment of intense polarization, violence and conflict, especially in the Kurdish southeast. This time, even senior AKP figures were caught off guard by the speed and decisiveness with which their party recaptured its lost votes and mandate.
More:AKP's Machiavellian Victory: How It Happened and What It Means for Turkey | Karabekir Akkoyunlu
